Keeping my Word

When I first started telling people I was moving to Germany for grad school, most people were so excited.

"Ah, I LOVE Berlin!"

"You are going to LOVE Berlin!"

"I can't WAIT to visit you in Berlin!"

Well, I had never been to Berlin. And I still haven't, if you bar the shuttle journey from the airport to the main train station when I first flew in a week and a half ago. You see, I'm not quite living in Berlin. Instead, after five years of chewing over my future (What do you mean my minor in Folklore doesn't qualify me to work at your company/NGO/local food co-op?!), I've up and left Philadelphia for... somewhere not-QUITE-Berlin, somewhere vaguely south-east of Berlin, somewhere that is probably still in Germany, but could possibly also be Poland. I moved to a small formerly-East German city called Cottbus and had no idea what to expect. It's not in any guidebooks, there are very few mentions of it on the Internet, and even my German friends knew mostly nothing about it.

But I did the best that I could to pack everything I could possibly need for two years spent in a country I had never visited, where I did not speak the language and didn't know a soul, into my backpack, my carry-on, and my single under-the-plane suitcase (which, to be fair, is a behemoth), and said goodbye to my family and friends.

I'm not good at goodbyes. Likely, you haven't realized I've left a party until I'm half-way home. Goodbyes are always full of big eyes, hard hugs, and FEELINGS. So, I developed a little catchphrase- my armor, if you will, against the dreaded Long, Hard Goodbye. And that promise was this:

'Don't worry- I'll keep in touch! In fact, I'm thinking of starting a blog.'

STARTING A BLOG STARTING A BLOG STARTING A BLOG STARTING A BLOG

The words echo- I haven't even started classes yet and already I am taking on additional responsibilities. And yet, here I am! Doing it! Keeping my word! Living in an apartment that sounds like the set-up for a bad joke:

So, an American, a Serbian, an Italian, and a Kenyan walk into a post-Soviet Brauhaus...

What I am trying to say is: WILKOMMEN TO MY BLOG. It's here now, so.